Companies: Universities

Lord Triesman: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, including reverse takeovers as acquisitions, any companies spun out of United Kingdom universities since 2003-04 have been acquired since then; and, if so, what were their (a) original and current names, and (b) flotation and sale values.
	To ask Her Majesty's Government, for each company spun out of United Kingdom universities for the years 2002-03 to 2009-10, what was (a) the name of the company, (b) the university from which the spin out occurred, (c) the market in which it is quoted, (d) the original flotation value, (e) the cash raised by the flotation, (f) the date of the flotation, (g) the stock market symbol for each company, (h) the market capital at 1 September 2010, and (i) the percentage increase in value between the original flotation and the market capital value at 1 September 2010.

Baroness Wilcox: Companies, including spin-outs, are required to comply with a number of formal reporting and accounting requirements. Information on individual university spin-out companies or their subsequent financial performance is not collected separately.
	The annual Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) Survey provides information about UK universities commercialisation activities, including the number of spin-outs created each year. The HE-BCI Survey 2008-09 is available at http://www.hesa.ac.uk.
	PraxisUnico compiles information from publicly available sources about university spin-out companies. This data indicates that between 2003 and 2010, 38 university spin-outs were floated on the stock exchange with an IPO value of £l.77 billion, and 24 university spin-out companies were acquired by other business for a total value in excess of £2.6 billion.
	The collated data from PraxisUnico is set out in the tables below:
	
		
			 Table 1: University Spin-out Company Flotations 
			 Company University Initial Market IPO Value Money raised Date of Launch Ticker 
			 Wolfson Micro Edinburgh LSE £214m £25.3m Oct-03 WLF.L 
			 ARK Therapeutics UCL LSE £168m £55m Mar-04 AKT.L 
			 OHM Southampton AiM £49m £10m Mar-04 OHM 
			 Vectura Bath AiM £60m £20.1m Jun-04 VEC.L 
			 Summit Oxford AiM £42m £15m Oct-04 SUMM 
			 Synairgen Southampton AiM £28m £10.5m Oct-04 SNG 
			 Ceres Power Imperial AiM £66m £21.6m Nov-04 CWR.L 
			 IDMos Dundee/St Andrews AiM £20m £5m Nov-04 IDO 
			 Microemissive Displays Edinburgh/Napier AiM £25.7m £15.7m Dec-04 MED 
			 Andor Queen's Belfast AiM £23m £4.5m Dec-04 AND 
			 Cambridge Display Technology Cambridge NASDAQ $234m (£122m) £15.6m Dec-04 OLED 
			 Fusion IP Sheffield/ Cardiff AiM £43m £8.2m Jan-05 FIP 
			 Proximagen KCL AiM £29.7m £14.5m Mar-05 PRX 
			 Provexis Rowett Research Institute AiM1 £14m £5.9m2 Jun-05 PXS 
			 Stem Cell Sciences Edinburgh AiM3- £21.2m £6.0m Jul-05 STEM 
			 Oxonica Oxford AiM £35.3m £7.1m Jul-05 OXN 
			 ReNeuron KCL AiM £23.4m £9.5m Aug-05 RENE 
			 NeuroDiscovery Warwick Australian £3.1m4 £0.63m Aug-05 NDL 
			 GETECH Leeds AiM £10.8m £3.5m Sep-05 GTC 
			 SPI Lasers Southampton AiM £25.5m £12m Oct-05 SPIL 
			 Celoxica Oxford AiM £16.1m £6.1m Oct-05 CXA 
			 Toumaz c Imperial College AiM £17.7m £7.1m Nov-05 TMZ 
			 Lipoxen School Of Pharmacy, London AiM £13.2m £3.78m Jan-06 LPX 
			 Syntopix Leeds AiM £10.1m £4.0m Mar-06 SYN 
			 ParOS Imperial AiM £16.5m - Mar-06 PARO 
			 Renovo Manchester LSE £154m £50m Apr-06 RNVO 
			 Oxford Catalysts Oxford AiM £65m £15m Apr-06 OCG.L 
			 Avacta Leeds AiM 6 £15m £1.013m Jul-06 AVCT 
			 Imperial Innovations Imperial AiM £180.8m £25m Jul-06 IVO 
			 ValiRx Imperial AiM £12.8m - Oct-06 VAL 
			 Epistem Manchester AiM £8.1m £3m Apr-07 EHP 
			 Modern Water Surrey/Cardiff AiM £70m £30m Jun-07 MWG 
			 Tracsis Leeds AiM £7m £2m Nov-07 TRCS 
			 e-Therapeutics Newcastle AiM £37.3m £1.3m Nov-07 ETX 
			 Oxford Advanced Surfaces Group Oxford AiM £44.5m £3m Dec-07 OXA 
			 Nanoco Group Manchester AiM £38.6m £8.1m May-09 NANO 
			 Ilika Southampton AIM £18.7m £5.2m May-10 IKA 
			 Tissue Regenix 7 Leeds AiM £23.3m £4.5m Jun-10 TRX 
			 Total   £1772.4m £434.7m   
		
	
	1 Reverse merger with Nutrinnovator plc
	2 £3.8m raised plus £2.1m loan for equity swap
	3 Now on NASDAQ
	4 At A$1 = 42.5p
	4 Reverse merger with Nanoscience plc
	5 Reverse takeover of Readybuy plc
	6 Reverse takeover of Oxeco
	
		
			 Table 2: University Spin-out Company Take-overs 
			 Acquisitions University Acquirer Price Date 
			 Kudos Pharma Cambridge/CRT Astra Zeneca £121 m Dec - 2005 
			 NeuTech Manchester Novartis £305.1m Jun - 2006 
			 Cambridge Antibody Technology MRC Astra Zeneca £702m1 Aug -2006 
			 Domantis MRC GSK £230m Dec -2006 
			 Solexa Cambridge Illumina £306m ($600m)) Jan - 2007 
			 Arrow Therapeutics UCL/Newcastle Astra Zeneca £76m ($150m) Feb - 2007 
			 Daniolabs Cambridge VASTox £15m Mar - 2007 
			 Plasso Technology Sheffield BD Not disclosed May - 2007 
			 MTEM Edinburgh Petroleum Geo-Services £138m ($275m) Jun - 2007 
			 Cambridge Display Technology Cambridge Sumitomo £140m ($285m) Jul - 2007 
			 Meridio Queens Belfast Autonomy £20m Nov - 2007 
			 CamFPD Cambridge Microsoft £l0m Nov - 2007 
			 OMD Oxford Avacta £3m Nov - 2007 
			 SIW UCL MDY Healthcare £12.5m Feb - 2008 
			 Transitive Manchester IBM Not disclosed Dec - 2008 
			 Thiakis Imperial Wyeth (Pfizer) £99.6m Dec - 2008 
			 Phototherapeutics Manchester Photomedex Inc £14m ($20m) Feb - 2009 
			 APT Queens Belfast Audemat Not disclosed Mar - 2009 
			 Inforsense Imperial IDBS £5m Jun - 2009 
			 BioAnaLab Oxford Millipore Not disclosed Jul - 2009 
			 Orthomemetics Cambridge/MIT TiGenix £14.9m (€16.3m) Dec - 2009 
			 Reactivelab Glasgow Avacta £5m Mar -2010 
			 Apatech QMU Baxter £220m ($330m) Mar -2010 
			 MET Imperial Evonik Industries AG £4.5m Mar - 2010 
			 Total   £2591.6m  
		
	
	1 Astra Zeneca already owned 19.2 per cent of CAT and paid £567 million to acquire the remaining 80.8 per cent of the company.

Education: Languages

Baroness Coussins: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many students applying to university in each of the past three years had taken (a) French, (b) German, (c) Spanish, (d) Russian, (e) Polish, (f) Mandarin, (g) Arabic, and (h) Turkish, at GCSE and gone on to take that language at AS level; and how many who took each language at AS level went on to take it at A2.
	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many students applying to university in each of the past three years who had taken two languages at GCSE went on to take (a) one and (b) two languages at AS level.
	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many students applying to university in each of the past three years who had taken two languages at AS level went on to take (a) one and (b) two languages at A2.

Baroness Wilcox: The information requested is not held centrally and is currently being researched. I will write to the noble Baroness as soon as the information is available and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

Internet: Broadband

Lord Rooker: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in light of the report from the Commission for Rural Communities into the potential of upland communities, they have plans to make broadband available to all farmers in upland areas who are willing to participate in schemes to preserve and enhance the landscape.

Baroness Wilcox: The Government are committed to ensuring the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, including the delivery of superfast broadband to rural and remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas. Farmers in upland communities will be among the beneficiaries of this policy.

Schools: Private Transport

Lord Morris of Manchester: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the provision of private school transport for children under the age of 18 with special needs will continue to be funded in full by local authorities.
	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will safeguard local authority funding for private school transport for children under the age of 18 with special needs in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review.

Lord Hill of Oareford: Current legislation requires local authorities to make arrangements for those children who:
	are unable to walk to school because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems; orare attending their nearest suitable school (including independent schools, if appropriate) and who live beyond statutory walking distance.
	Where local authorities consider transport to be necessary, it must be provided free of charge.
	All funding decisions from 2011 are subject to the outcome of the spending review which will be announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Taxation: Avoidance

Lord Barnett: To ask Her Majesty's Government what amount of revenue was recouped by action on tax avoidance and tax evasion in (a) 2007-08, (b) 2008-09, and (c) 2009-10.

Lord Sassoon: Total results for tax recovered as a result of HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) work to tackle non-compliance in previous years can be found in their departmental autumn performance report 2009, page 40 at Table 4 (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/about/autumn-report-2009.pdf). This table shows that the additional tax liability (including penalties and interest) resulting from HMRC compliance work in 2007-08 was £11.051 billion and in 2008-09 was £12.075 billion. Data for 2009-10 are not yet available.
	As HMRC's performance data are not currently collated on the basis of behaviour, separate figures are not available for avoidance and evasion, and could be produced only at disproportionate cost.

Universities: Finance

Lord Myners: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are willing to allow British universities to fail financially; and what action would be taken in such circumstances to protect the financial position of individual students, and to provide continuity of education.

Baroness Wilcox: Universities are autonomous bodies that are responsible for their own financial management. Their financial health is closely monitored by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) which actively assesses and manages risks to financial viability. HEFCE's key interest is in protecting public funds and the interests of students.

Young People: Advice and Guidance

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: To ask Her Majesty's Government which proposals in Quality, Choice and Aspiration-A Strategy for Young People's Information, Advice and Guidance, issued by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in October 2009, they (a) support, (b) plan to amend, and (c) do not plan to implement.
	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it plans to publish a report from the Task Force on the Careers Profession.

Lord Hill of Oareford: Quality, Choice and Aspiration-A Strategy for Young People's Information, Advice and Guidance is a statement of policy made by the previous Government. The coalition Government are currently considering how best to secure high-quality careers guidance for young people and adults alongside the provision of other information, advice and guidance that can help young people navigate the choices they have and will set out more details this autumn. This review of policy will be informed by the recommendations of the Task Force on the Careers Profession. The task force will publish a report this autumn recommending how best to recruit, retain and support careers professionals to provide a high quality service.

Your Freedom Initiative

Lord Grocott: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many responses have been received to their Your Freedom initiative.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The Your Freedom website provided an online platform for members of public to suggest laws and regulations that the Government should consider scrapping. It also offered users a forum for commenting and voting on the suggestions of others. At the end of the consultation period there had been 15,238 ideas submitted, 76,994 comments posted and 47,212 registered users.

Your Freedom Initiative

Lord Grocott: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have plans to publish responses to the Restoring Civil Liberties section of the Your Freedom initiative indicating the laws which respondents want removed or changed and the number supporting each proposition.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The process of analysing ideas submitted to the Your Freedom website is ongoing. The Government have always stated that every idea will be given due consideration, but it cannot guarantee a response to each one.
	The majority of the ideas submitted to the website relating to the Restoring Civil Liberties section are the responsibility of the Home Office. Whilst some ideas, such as legalising drugs, will not be taken forward by this Government, many of the public's comments will be included in the Freedom Bill or in other legislation to be introduced later this Session. For example, we have already announced that a ban on wheel clamping on private land and changes to DNA retention policy will be introduced in the Freedom Bill.